


P'Li Appreciation Week Drabbles

by RhazadeWaterbender



Series: Red Lotus Appreciation Weeks 2015 [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Gen, P'Li Appreciation Week, Red Lotus, Red Lotus appreciation weeks, poor big evil wounded girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhazadeWaterbender/pseuds/RhazadeWaterbender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what it says on the tin: a celebration of our favorite 6'8" sniper tragic antagonist.  May contain discussions of violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1:  Height

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure where I got the idea that she'd have been self-conscious about her height in her younger days, or that it would have been largely the fault of the unnamed warlord, but that's what seems to have manifested.  
> 

At nine, plagued by headaches and with her world violently disrupted, it slips her notice at first how fast she’s growing.  After all, it’s not as if she hasn’t _always_ been big for her age.

By twelve, she’s learned to slouch apologetically in the presence of her captor.  It’s not until years later that she recognizes that this demand, and the insults with which he bombards her— _why won’t you stop growing already;_ _your upkeep had best not exceed the value of how rare your sort are_ _, you great ungainly creature_ —are born of resentment that his prized _artillery_ , young as she is, already nearly looks him in the eye.

She’s fifteen when a boy scarcely older sneaks into the compound and seems determined to befriend her.  While the fact that the top of his head scarcely clears the bridge of her nose initially startles him, he nonetheless seems far less upset by that than by the way that she curls in on herself.  If his plan goes through, he tells her, she’ll be able to stand as tall as she pleases.

“For that,” she replies, “I’d have to go back and quit growing about three years ago.”  A look of hurt anger—on her behalf, he’s quick to explain—briefly crosses the boy’s face.

At eighteen—her years as a child assassin now nothing but a painful memory—she seems to have finally achieved her full height, and hopes against all hope that she’s not wrong.  She towers, especially now that she’s broken herself of the habit of trying to hide it; doorways have become something of a peeve.

Nonetheless, she takes the gangly sandbender boy’s feigned dismay at the relative novelty of someone being taller than him, and the sardonic barbs of the tiny healer who’s since joined their company, in good humor.  And she finds it endearing that the young man who’d orchestrated her escape sometimes stands on his tiptoes to kiss her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this is strictly a background detail: Ming-Hua _totally_ had a specialty, and it was _totally_ healing. As evidence, I offer the fact that Bolin's shiner goes away between "The Stakeout" and "Long Live the Queen."


	2. Day 2:  Combustionbending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We don't know much about this specialty...and considering that it's canonically _rare_ , it kind of makes sense that P'Li wouldn't, either.

Even now that she’s become aware that she has value beyond being _artillery_ , she’s still the sniper of their little band.  That’s not to say that none of the others are effective at long range; it’s simply that her rare talent both grants her the _longest_ range, and makes her the most dangerous from such a distance.

The exact details of that talent remain a mystery even to her.  If her captor discovered anything about it while she was in his clutches, it’s either perished with him or fled with his followers.  The resultant damage is done; having anyone prod at her face—even someone whom she trusts as implicitly as she does the water-armed healer—makes her too nervous to stand for it for long.  And not only has little been documented about others with such gifts as hers, but what _does_ exist sets her teeth on edge:  The most infamous example had _chosen_ to be _artillery_.

She’ll be lauded as a revolutionary, or she’ll be reviled as an insurgent.  But she will _never_ meet her end doing some tyrant’s dirty work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, she kind of dissed Sparky Sparky Boom Man.


	3. Day 3: Prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in an ice crevasse as per canon, poor big evil wounded girl...

The cell is only not damp because it’s too _cold_ for that.  Even with her innate ability to warm herself—what makes her dangerous and strange is entirely suppressed and contained; the underlying power, for all that she certainly couldn’t fight in this cold, is merely banked—the sniper constantly shivers. 

This, if anything, is worse than the ordeal of her youth; the misery of it is compounded by the knowledge that the plan has failed, and spectacularly.  There’s little consolation in the fact that—even behind bars, with a metal plate chained in place over her light chakra—the guards still seem afraid of her.

Worse yet is having no idea of what the other three are being subjected to, and no way of finding out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This really, _really_ hurt to write.


	4. Day 4: Appearance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone suggested "write P'Li getting inked." To that person: _is this what you wanted_?

In a cell with barred windows, a lanky, russet-eyed girl of ten—her face pressed against her cot to muffle the sound—sobs helplessly.

Her bandaged forehead throbs like a sunburn.  But it had hurt just as badly when she’d scorched herself invoking the talent for the first time.  It’s not about the physical pain.

It’s that her captor has _marked_ her.  His _artillery_ , after all, needs a focus.  And if that means turning the face of a ten-year-old girl into what, to her, seems a three-eyed demon mask...that’s a small price to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a couple of ideas...and instead of running with either, I took a suggestion and went dark with it.


	5. Day 5:  Relationships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> P'heer would be too easy. Instead, have a bit of her dynamic with Ming-Hua.

She quickly develops a ridiculous, embarrassing crush on the strategist...which is obvious, she’s sure, to everyone _except_ him.  The sandbender, by contrast, she comes to view almost as a younger brother.

This newest teammate, however...she’s not sure _what_ to make of the foul-mouthed, sardonic little healer at first.

Decades later—after the younger woman swiftly dispatches the guards, snaps the cell door off of its hinges, and slices the chains that hold the metal headband in place—the sniper outright hugs her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure their friendship proper was actually initiated with a girls' night out as implemented by anarchist superantivillainesses (meaning bottles, chairs, buildings, and _faces_ got broken). But I wasn't quite in the right headspace to write that at the moment.


	6. Day 6:  Favorite Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> P'Li's introductory scene in "The Earth Queen" gave me the impression that she was pretty much the Fox Xanatos of the Avatarverse. Pity we didn't really get to _see_ much of that.

 

_There_ —the faint ratcheting sound of the bridge extending.  And the figures on it...aren’t in sentry uniforms.

Four of them, two of whom she immediately recognizes by sight:  One is... _His Lordship_. The other is the man whose daughter is at the root of _why_ she’s in this predicament—the brother of the backstabber who’d _landed_ her here.

She still wonders _why_ he’d done that.  But the presence of the two thin, robed youths—whose identities are easy enough to guess—confirms the rumors.  She’ll likely never know.

Why are they... _wait_.

For the first time in thirteen years, a sudden flare of genuine hope.


	7. Day 7:  Anything Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And, finally: have something out of a Red Lotus!Korra AU!

She’s uncertain as to whether her blessing and curse _can_ even be taught; perhaps it springs from some trait as innate as her great height and russet eyes.  Luckily, her... _fosterling_ , for want of a better word...hasn’t pressed.

Nonetheless, the sturdy dark girl—for all that she’s yet to best the sniper at a spar—takes to fire as if she _weren’t_ born to its opposite.  She wonders, idly, if it's a matter of her not throwing in any such additional challenges such as the healer's tactic of having the girl train with her arms bound.  _Perhaps it's time to find a safe stretch of tundra for the purpose_.

Sometimes, the sniper wonders how they’re going to go about training the girl in her final element at all.  Although the strategist understands the basic principles, he has no command of _any_ element, much less _that_ all-too-rare one.  And there’s no one _with_ that gift who can be trusted.

And at other times—such as now—still _other_ worries pluck at her: What of the likely fate of this girl—who, whatever she may symbolize, is one of their number now—after _that_ , at the apex of their plan?  And is the girl’s role in that plan really so different from her own in that of the man who’d shattered her childhood?

But she puts it aside; the girl knows what is at stake just as well, and is just as willing to risk herself, as any of them.  And besides, those are concerns for later.

Right now: the sound of a pebble shifting, and a vague flicker of movement at the corner of her eye.  The Avatar is about to spring out blazing; give her another moment before disabusing her of the notion that her ambush attempt has succeeded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I get the distinct impression that P'Li would spot the parallel, but rationalize it.


End file.
